I see the fat lady, I hear no singing

I decided to spend my last London weekend in Budapest, significantly shortening the window to so long, farewell to everybody in London. As anticipated, most of them wanted a piece of me these past weeks, so between the habitual mayhem at work and the upcoming brain drain, I ate and drank my evenings away. Which is a regularly returning common practice, although these bunfights had a bitter undertone - I’m leaving London, so we won’t be able to do this for the foreseeable future.

To me distance only enforces the essence of my valued friendships: we are going to learn how not to take each other for granted. We’ll create anticipation. We’ll commit. We’ll make an effort. And we’ll meet again and eat all the food and drink all the wine - in London, in Stockholm, in Budapest and anywhere in between. Where my home is, their home is.

Fast forward to this week I made the last 72 hours as stressful as I could. I bid farewell to Horseferry Campus on Thursday, I packed up my apartment on Friday and after a brief 3 hours of sleep I fled to Sardinia Saturday morning. I allowed myself no time to think or question or be emotional about it all… until Rob arrived from New York with two bottles of champagne and his mom’s home-made cookies she’d made for me.

I was cleaning the balcony door with a glass of champagne in hand when my brain allowed me to think about what’s coming for the first time.

“Am I doing the right thing?” - I asked. “Yes” - he said without the slightest hesitation.

With that yes came no further questions. The fat lady stopped singing.